


Burned

by OxfordOctopus



Series: OxfordOctopus' Snips'n'Snaps [23]
Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Alt-Power Taylor Hebert, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brute Taylor, Canon-Typical Violence, Danny Hebert is Dead, Gen, Inspired by RWBY, With a Bit of Adam, Yang Inspired Power
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:13:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23040763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OxfordOctopus/pseuds/OxfordOctopus
Summary: Two crashes, two dead parents, one gained power. Taylor never wanted it, but she had to do something with it, anything at all.
Relationships: Taylor Hebert | Skitter | Weaver & Faultline
Series: OxfordOctopus' Snips'n'Snaps [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1435474
Comments: 2
Kudos: 76





	Burned

**Author's Note:**

> Taylor's power, for those who aren't aware, is as follows:
> 
> Stores twice the amount of kinetic - or other types of - energy applied to them. Can then express this outwardly in a form of super strength. Her power absorbs the impact in such a way that, given the right treads on her shoes and both of her feet being on the ground, allows for her to remain completely still when hit with tremendous amounts of force. Has a distinct and extremely vulnerable weakness to attacks where a lot of the force is being applied to a small area, making thin energy beams, sharp weapons, and piercing weapons a near-guaranteed way to bypass their otherwise highly effective defenses. She is also weak to grappling, and if she doesn’t have both feet on the ground, blows can still throw her a distance.

It had all gone off with a hitch. Not that it wasn’t to be expected, of course, Lisa knew better than to think the jobs Coil gave the group to keep them all occupied would be anything but. If there had been a hitch in the plan, a sudden unexpected element, then it was likely part of whatever machiavellian greater scheme the creep had going on. Not that things could get rough around the edges at times - the E88-owned jewelry robbery came to mind - but for all that he had recruited her with a gun to his head, Coil did show a staggering capacity to set up and execute near-flawless plans.  
  
Robbing a casino was no different. Her power had informed her it was an intentional escalation by Coil, so the fact that they’d gone in under the cover of night and taken the place by storm before anyone could put up any worthwhile resistance, an absolute perfect heist, was a bit bittersweet. This was the prelude to something, what that something _was_ exactly wasn’t clear, and Lisa frankly wasn’t about to think too much about it. Her headache was bad enough as it was, letting her power ride that line of thought would put her under for days if she was lucky, more than a week if she wasn’t.  
  
The only downside aside from the foreboding notion that this was the beginning of something larger was that they had to ride Rachel’s dogs back to base. Not that she didn’t appreciate Rachel or her dogs, abrasiveness aside, but riding on the back of one of the two dogs she’d brought with her for the venture with everybody else was less than comfortable. It was cramped, with Brian behind Rachel, Alec behind Brian, and herself behind Alec. She’d ridden horses in her youth - it came with the territory of rich parents, unfortunately - and riding a massive, enhanced dog was nothing like it, regardless of how similar it might look in execution.  
  
At least they were making good pace down the street if nothing else. They were riding Judas, if she wasn’t mistaken, with Brutus taking up their right side, saddled with the money and various miscellanea Alec had demanded they take, including a faux gold bust of Margaret Thatcher, of all people. Not that she didn’t appreciate the humour, it was just part of the reason they’d all had to squeeze onto one dog instead of splitting up among two, and the headache she was nursing was making her a little uncharitable to their local neighbourhood sociopath.  
  
Squinting, Lisa leaned a bit to the right, glancing down the last stretch of road before they could disperse into the maze of side-roads and alleys. At the far end of the road, a girl in costume was stepping out. She was tall, a bit gangly, with long curly black hair and wearing a full bodysuit in white with grey lines curving along her legs and arms. Her torso was covered by a longer padded vest, her hands were also covered in protective gear, metal plates that started at her knuckles and only stopped just a few inches past her wrist. She additionally wore some form of combat boots, had a pair of straps around her hips that tucked beneath her legs, equipped with a pair of pouches, which led up into a harness-like strap to an odd, small cylindrical-shaped bag on her back. Her mask was another distinctive feature, completely covering her face, its shape reminiscent of a kite shield, with eight holes arranged in such a way to form a circle around the main portion of the mask, none of which lined up with her eyes.  
  
 _Wants to stop you_.  
  
Lisa bit back a pained noise as her power rattled off its starting statement. She yanked back on it before it could start to hyper analyze someone’s costume and let her deductive measures put it together. Probably not a Brute, but maybe a Blaster or a Tinker, wants to stop you, so probably a hero of some kind. New, because neither she nor Coil had heard hide nor hair of the girl before, or maybe a former villain or vigilante who rebranded, though that was unlikely because the long curly black hair was distinctive enough and that aside, it looked real enough that she doubted it was a wig.  
  
Rolling her eyes, Lisa glanced towards Rachel, who was looking straight on at the new arrival. The girl was standing dead center in the street, seemingly content when facing down a pair of huge monsters. “Bitch!” Lisa called out, catching Rachel’s attention for just long enough to let her nod towards the random arrival. “Get rid of her!”  
  
Rachel’s shoulder staggered for a moment before her head flashed back around. _Appreciates you’re not trying to talk to the other cape,_ her power added, drawing out another spike of pain. _Happy she gets to hurt someone after being forced not to for the entire night, angry at something else, likely unrelated to you_.  
  
“Brutus!” Rachel yelled, snapping her fingers before pointing at the person they were rapidly approaching. “Attack!”  
  
Brutus launched forward with an awkward gait, his lurch carrying him into the air for a few moments, paws scrambling on nothing before meeting concrete, shooting forward. The girl remained unmoved, even as the monster bore down on her, only adjusting her stance, back foot sliding back, front forward a bit more forward, arm moving up. Her head twinged as her power tried to tell her something that she ignored, readjusting her assumption about the cape from Blaster to Shaker, maybe something with shields.  
  
Brutus met the other girl with enough force behind him to shatter buildings and stopped completely dead. The girl didn’t even budge, and the odd way Brutus stopped, as though he’d rammed headfirst into something he couldn’t move, body folding as all of that force went nowhere, set her power off something fierce. _Likely a Brute_ , it whispered, the pain a distant memory as she watched red energy flicker up from the arm that Brutus had initially impacted, spreading across her body, flickering and hissing, sliding into her hair and lighting it up like a stormcloud with red lightning. _Energy negation, outfit implies a weakness to direct damage, knives, bullets, maybe weakness to precise applications of forces, less so to general kinetic force_.  
  
The girl drew her arm back, her hair lit up, humming with energy, as it spread back out to her body, her primed fist exploding with light. _About to retaliate_ , her power rattled off uselessly. _Angling her punch, intentionally aiming to hit Brutus back at the rest of you_.  
  
Shit.  
  
The punch shot forward with a crack, an echoing bang of sheer force. Brutus’ head snapped back and portions of his spine were forced up through his enhanced body, popping and bleeding a semi-clear fluid. A breath later, Brutus was hurtled back at them, carried on by the force. _Twice as much force as applied to her_ was the last thing her power could offer her before Brutus’ enhanced bulk met their own and everything went painful and black.  
  


* * *

  
Tightening the zip-tie over the last of the Undersiders - Grue, apparently, in this case - Taylor let out a huff, stepping back to view her work. On one side of the road, courtesy of Bitch, were two deflating monstrous dog-like creatures, and on the other were the Undersiders in various states of disrepair. She might’ve overdone it in hindsight, seeing as the only person to come out of the incident without some sort of broken bone was Tattletale, though the girl in question took a hard enough knock to her head that it might not matter all that much in the long run. By comparison, Grue’s right leg from the knee down was bent at an odd angle, Regent’s right and left arms were both broken or at least heavily bruised, and Bitch had her left foot and right arm twisted at a disturbing angle, alongside what seemed to be general bruising across her body if the pained noises she made when Taylor moved her were any indication.  
  
Faultline was going to have her ass, wasn’t she? Breathing out a sigh, Taylor stepped away from the group and into the middle of the street. She’d been on her way back from a meeting with the person hiring them for a job - her first in the crew - and, well, she’d come across them finishing up their robbery of the casino. Faultline had complained about Tattletale before, mostly about nearly poaching Spitfire - who joined a month and a half after she did - and, well, it’d _seemed_ like a smart decision of the time. If nothing came of it, then she would’ve just not mentioned it and let things be bygones, but when she’d gone to talk to them, Tattletale had just told her to be attacked and, just, those _things_ were kinda horrifying, alright? The dog-lizards, or whatever, they didn’t fuck around and frankly, Taylor just responded as _anyone_ would’ve.  
  
Ugh.  
  
Palming her right pouch, Taylor retrieved both of her phones - one for the civilian side of things, the other for the cape side of things, Faultline had instilled a paranoia about accidentally unmasking herself due to logistic issues - and shoved the civilian one back into her pocket. Faultline had gone back to her civilian house, saying she’d be on her way to the Palanquin after, but she was probably still in costume since they’d only split up fifteen minutes ago.  
  
Ignoring the slight shake of her hand when handling the damn thing, Taylor went through her contacts, finding Faultline’s out of the total of three she had, and hit the dial button. A burner phone didn’t have to be fancy or in the style of a smartphone, thankfully, seeing as she couldn’t use a smartphone screen with her gloves on and it was a royal pain in her ass to take them off without also slipping out of her costume.  
  
The phone rang for a few times, enough that Taylor was worried for a split second that Faultline had already slipped out of her costume and was relaxing or something before finally the connection _clicked_. “Ballast?” Faultline’s voice was enough of a relief that Taylor had to steady herself. She was in no way prepared to deal with this on her own, especially because she’d just gone against group policy. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”  
  
Ah, she was concerned. Shit. “Oh, uhm. Not really?” Taylor hedged, glancing back towards the amassed group of semi-conscious, heavily-battered small-time villains. “I just, uh, might’ve somehow managed to take out the Undersiders and capture Tattletale?”  
  
The line was silent for a few seconds. “Wait, what?” Faultline sounded genuinely bewildered, almost to the point of parody. “When? How? Why?”  
  
“In order, uh, two minutes ago by a casino they were robbing, by throwing one of Bitch’s monsters into the one they were riding, and because I walked out onto the street and before I could say anything Tattletale told Bitch to attack me?”  
  
Faultline was silent for another few seconds before something between a choked-off laugh and a sigh escaped her. “I’m really not sure how to feel about that, Ballast. It goes against policy, but since you didn’t take out a job, you’re in the clear, just don’t do it again. What are you going to do with them, anyway?”  
  
“Uhm. I thought, well, maybe you could tell me?” It wasn’t as though Faultline hadn’t been acting as her surrogate parent - however begrudgingly - for the last few months. She was, after all, the closest thing to one Taylor had left.  
  
Sucking in a breath, Taylor shook that intrusive thought away. She’d unpack that later.  
  
“Call the PRT?” Faultline hedged easily, the sounds of shuffling and clinking equipment echoing just vaguely in the background. “You’ve zip-tied them all, right? Like we taught you.”  
  
“Yeah,” Taylor confirmed easily, forcing herself not to pace. “I also duct taped Tattletale’s mouth, not that I think she’ll be conscious enough for a while for it to be a bother to her.”  
  
That got a laugh out of Faultline. “You weren’t supposed to take the ‘shut up the Thinkers’ that literally, Ballast. Look, I’m gonna get off the line and start heading back to the Palanquin, you should too. Call the PRT, wait for them to arrive, and then leave as soon as possible. We haven’t revealed you yet, so don’t tell whoever arrives that you’re a member of the crew, okay? Anyway, we’re going to have to talk about this when you get back.”  
  
Before Taylor could agree to that, Faultline cut the line, leaving Taylor listening to the dull roar of the dial tone. Shrugging her shoulders, a bit defensively, Taylor went back to her contacts, picked out the PRT hotline, and then dialled. It took significantly less time than Faultline’s number, clicking on almost instantly after. “Hello, this is the Parahuman Response Team emergency number, how can we help you today?”  
  
Taylor fidgeted, somewhat against her own will. “I, uhm, have a few villains for you to pick up?”  
  
It seemed that she was knocking the ball out of the park with her statements, seeing as it took a few seconds for what she just said to be fully understood by the person on the other end of the call. “Oh! Do you have a location we can come to pick them up, the names of the villains, and your name?”  
  
More questions, she could do questions. “Uhm, I’m on the same street as the Ruby Dreams Casino, I have the Undersiders here - Tattletale, Bitch, Grue, and I think Regent? - and I’m Ballast.”  
  
The click and clack of keyboard keys filled in the few seconds of silence that followed the operator confirming what she just said. “Great!” The operator chirped with significantly too much cheer, it both felt and sounded fake. “Please remain where you are while our closest hero arrives, which in this case will be... Armsmaster, I believe. Also, we will be sending a response van, so please try to move people out of the way of the main street if they are unconscious, or if you cannot move them, please remain standing in front of them so our retrieval team can do their jobs. If you want, you may remain on the line, but you are free to hang up for now, as Armsmaster is within thirty seconds of where you currently are.”  
  
Feeling, for lack of a better word, uncomfortable, Taylor was quick to thumb the hang-up button on her burner, slipping it back into her left pouch, along with the rest of her more sensitive equipment. The distant roar of a vehicle was faint but noticeable, though for a moment she was more than a little worried that she might end up having to fight Squealer while a gang of teenage villains were unconscious and unable to avoid getting run over. The fact that the roar of an engine wasn’t immediately followed by banging, screams, or biblical clouds of thick, tar-black smog probably meant it was either Armsmaster or someone else who was stupid or strong enough to use a deafening muffler at two in the morning without fear of being gunned down.  
  
It was, somewhat bizarrely, almost literally thirty seconds later that Armsmaster rolled up on a motorcycle. It was hard not to immediately recognize his blue-and-silver power armour, not to mention the distinctive halberd that he pulled free from the side of his motorcycle with a simple tap and tug of his hand. He was, if nothing else, immensely imposing, a giant of steel and shifting cervos, his posture always too stiff, too harsh to appear personable, even if they’d forced him to wear a visor instead of a full mask in the last few years.  
  
“You’re Ballast?” He asked with little preamble, eyes sliding from her to the mass of grounded capes and the two piles of still-shrinking flesh, though focusing a bit, Taylor could almost hear a weird sound, something like barking? When she finally nodded, Armsmaster stomped his way towards the capes, glancing between them. “How did you do it?”  
  
Taken a bit back by the statement, Taylor shifted her gaze to the capes, to the various broken bones and bruised bodies. “I threw one of the dogs into the one they were riding.”  
  
“A Brute, then?” Armsmaster asked placidly, eyes never moving from the Undersiders. Taylor didn’t move to respond, it would be both stupid and reckless to confirm anything about her power. Her power had weaknesses, sharp objects, bullets, things most Brutes shrugged off but that she couldn’t. Sure, she was functionally invulnerable to effectively all forms of energy - electricity, fire, kinetic force, etc - that weren’t focused down to sharp points, which included energy she got from being hit, but she sure wasn’t about to make mention of that. They could find out on their own time, and anyway, even saying she was a Brute would let them identify her and start asking questions about why she wore bulletproof and slash-proof equipment to diffuse energy from focused attacks, letting her power absorb it.  
  
Her silence might’ve been telling though since Armsmaster just gave her a look from the side before glancing back towards the Undersiders. “Join the Protectorate,” he eventually said. “You’ll be able to do more and better that way.”  
  
...That didn’t sound much like a recruitment pitch. “Is that all?”  
  
Finally, Armsmaster turned his full attention onto her, and she immediately regretted ever making him do so. He was imposing in person, closed-off and hard to read, but he was even more intimidating when he towered over you, outfitted to the nines in various things that could kill you, and was looking right at you. Taylor restrained the urge to suck in a breath, to instinctively retreat from his gaze, it wasn’t even a harsh gaze, just a flat one, and that was what made it so bad. In the end, she didn’t matter to Armsmaster, not in the long run, not like this. He had no opinion of her, no opinion of who she was, she just _was_.  
  
“You managed to take down a team of four capes, one of which is a noted murderer with the ability to generate massive creatures, another is a known career criminal who worked for highly-competent villains who train their subordinates,” Armsmaster began, speaking in a dead monotone. “Putting aside Tattletale, who is regularly assumed to be the source of leaks, and Regent, someone who we are worried may be one of Heartbreaker’s children, you faced down two individuals who have easily outmaneuvered parahuman response time and time again. On your own. By throwing one of their _creatures at them_.”  
  
Taylor nodded blankly, not sure what else to do.  
  
“I could try to sell you on the Protectorate more directly,” Armsmaster started up again, folding one arm over the other, keeping his halberd in the crook of his left. “But you’re strong enough to do this, and I don’t think you would be one who would be drawn in by job opportunities or possible incentives. Instead, I’m offering you an olive branch, an open invitation to come in and join with no questions asked, because it’s policy not to push the issue with new, presumed-to-be powerful capes we meet.”  
  
He wasn’t wrong.  
  
Finally, Armsmaster directed his attention back towards the Undersiders, and a knot of tension Taylor had been stewing on unravelled, letting her breathe a bit again. Let it never be known that Brutes don’t feel fear, she supposed.  
  
“I’m just, going to go?” Taylor eventually offered, getting a shrug out of Armsmaster. “Yeah, I’m going to go. Thanks for arriving this quickly, but I need to get back.”  
  
“Consider my offer,” Armsmaster cut in, but he didn’t look back her way. “That’s all the Protectorate asks.”  
  
Right, right. She’d do that.  
  
Sidling off the right, Taylor paid Armsmaster one last look before forcing one foot in front of the other, leading herself back down the sidewalk and back towards the Palanquin, towards home.


End file.
